Learnings From Race 3 & Thugs Of Hindostan Box Office – Do We Need Another Film Release During The Festive Season?

This week saw the release of Aamir Khan’s Thugs of Hindostan and despite a record-breaking start at the Box Office, the collections of the film came down by a huge margin on its second day.

The approximate drop on the second day when compared to first day is 45 to 47%, and the box office collections are expected to come down further on Saturday and Sunday as the audience feedback isn’t on the positive side. Basically, the film will fall short of the humongous expectations and might end below the Rs 200 crore mark at the domestic box office.

A similar phenomenon happened in Eid 2018, wherein Salman Khan’s Race 3 opened to a good response but eventually fell on the weekdays owing to negative audience reports and ends its run around the Rs 170 crore mark. Basically, both the films did reasonably well in the weekend owing to the stardom of two Khan’s and holiday period, but eventually couldn’t hold up well. When the audience is in the mood to splurge money, they don’t have enough options in the multiplexes. As the festive releases don’t have a good word of mouth, a large chunk of audience eventually refrains from visiting the cinema halls.

This gets us to the point of the article, i.e. wouldn’t it be great to see one big film and one small film release during the festive period. This would be a win and win situation for everyone i.e. the audience, the exhibitors and the distributors, however it is only the big stars who wouldn’t really be open to this idea. Imagine a film like Badhaai Ho releasing on Diwali alongside Thugs of Hindostan. The film would have taken approximately 1000 screens, whereas Thugs of Hindostan would have got approximately 4000 screens and both the film would run to record occupancy owing to restricted screenings and different target audience.

Similarly, imagine a film like Stree releasing on Eid along side Race 3. Wouldn’t this have been a beneficial scenario for the exhibitors as their theatres would run to full house all across. Wouldn’t this scenario be beneficial for Stree/Badhaai Ho as the two films would have probably done better business than what they did now owing to the festive season. Audience is willing to spend money during the festive season, and if a good film releases with a bad film, it is the good film that will overshadow the bad film in the long run. It is a risk, but I believe, a risk worth taking, as a good film always finds the audience.